


Sometimes the cards just fall perfectly.

by qwanderer



Series: in the habit of saving the world [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: College Age Them, Epistolary, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other, Philosophical Discussions of Demonhood, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: warlocktbh:You seem pretty levelheaded, wtf are you doing on a supernatural experiences discord anyway? Just here to play devil’s advocate?pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:Ugh, I would never. I’ve met Satan and he was disgustingly entitled.warlocktbh:I actually can’t tell if you’re messing with me rn or not.





	Sometimes the cards just fall perfectly.

**warlocktbh:** You seem pretty levelheaded, wtf are you doing on a supernatural experiences discord anyway? Just here to play devil’s advocate?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Ugh, I would never. I’ve met Satan and he was disgustingly entitled.

**warlocktbh:** I actually can’t tell if you’re messing with me rn or not.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Most people would assume I am. I suspect that’s the only reason I seem levelheaded. 

**warlocktbh:** Nah, it’s your consistency. People in the server go to you for opinions because they can depend on some kind of internal logic, imo.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** What about you? You usually seem like the kind of jerk who’s just here to mock people and poke holes in their stories, but you’re considering taking ^that at face value?

**warlocktbh:** People lie all the time for a lot of reasons but when people say they’ve been through some shit, I tend to think they’ve been through some shit. The details aren’t always coherent, but like. I try not to mock people’s trauma.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** I wholeheartedly endorse that policy.

**warlocktbh:** I can tell. That’s one of the reasons I like you, tbh. You’re the first person here who seemed cool enough for me to actually want to have a conversation with them.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Is it because you’ve been through some shit, Warlock? Would you like to talk about it? 

**warlocktbh:** That isn’t actually

I want to make a friend, okay, I don’t just wanna dump all my shit on you

btw thanks for not shortening my username to “war,” I kinda hate that

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** np, I have also met War and she was a bitch so I’m not gonna inflict that on anyone

Please do shorten my usename, btw, it’s ridic

Anyway, it’s cool, friend. Lay your shit upon me. I am in the server because I am insatiably curious about any and all trauma and/or drama, supernatural or no.

**warlocktbh:** Okay well

If youre sure

I’m not even gonna go into the weirdness that was my life before I hit the double digits, but trust me, it was weird. Not necessarily in a supernatural way. Idek if I’ve even had an actually supernatural experience or if people are just. Nucking futs. You know?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Oh, trust me. They are. But also sometimes things just can’t be explained by conventional means.

**warlocktbh: **Yeah that makes sense.

Okay so. My dad’s job means we travel a lot, right? So one time when I was eleven, we all got hauled out to the middle of nowhere, Israel. No one understood why. Like, my dad was bullshitting his way through the whole thing but he was as lost as me and mom. And then this guy came up to us for, supposedly, a photo op on this archaeological site.

And this guy. He smelled like _ ass _. I am not kidding. So he asks me about the voices in my head, and he freaks out that I don’t have a dog for some reason? And he just. Looks straight at me and bites his own finger off. 

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Holy shit.

**warlocktbh:** Yeah. And he bled, like, black goo. I mean my dad said he must not have been well. Plus, that was the same day when the news was reporting, like, rains of fish and Atlantis rising out of the sea. And then the next day it was all, mass hallucination, everything’s fine. They were all saying it was because of. I don’t know. Sunspots or something. But I know what I saw. 

And I know what I _ smelled. _

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** …

**warlocktbh:** What? Too much for you?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** ...

No but, well, that was the same day I met Satan. 

**warlocktbh:** Okay now you really are shitting me.

Aren’t you?

Pip?

You’re not kidding, are you? Something went down that day. Something big and weird. 

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah. Really big and really weird. 

I wouldn’t blame you if you just straight-up refused to believe it entirely. Some days I don’t. But then I hang out with Adam and his godfathers and all of it seems solid again.

Adam was the Antichrist. After Adam and me and our friends fought the four horsepersons of the Apocalypse, and a witch with a book of prophecy helped avert total nuclear obliteration, Satan rose up out of the ground to tell him off for stopping Armageddon. But an angel and a demon helped him use his magic powers to banish Satan. Then they moved in together. And now we all hang out on weekends at their place down in Sussex.

**warlocktbh:** Wait, you live in England?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** That’s the part you noticed? Really?

**warlocktbh:** I was born in England. Lived there on and off for most of my life. 

London, mostly. Born up in Oxfordshire, though. 

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Oh, I’m in Oxfordshire myself. Tiny village called Tadfield. Probably haven’t heard of it.

**warlocktbh:** …

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Do not tell me.

**warlocktbh:** I was born in Tadfield. Weird little religious hospital.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Run by overly chatty nuns?

**warlocktbh:** Yeah, mom goes on rants about the nuns when she’s drunk sometimes.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Adam was born there. Right before it burned down. Like, the day before.

**warlocktbh:** What. The. Fuck.

Wait. So. This is the guy you said was the Antichrist? And there was supposed to be Armageddon? That’s where the thing happened. Where the guy bit his finger off. The fields of Megiddo. That was part of my dad’s whole thing. He said some people called it Armageddon but not to mention it because it could be a contentious subject.

Guess it really was ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** No. You’re having me on. Who put you up to this?

It was Crowley, wasn’t it?

His payback for my not believing his story about how he wrote a fifty page report about how he invented trolling on the internet and handed it into Hell in 2017, and put a bunch of keysmashes in the middle to check up and make sure no one down there was actually reading the whole thing.

**warlocktbh:** ...I’d get pissy that you think I’m lying but tbh I still kind of think _ you _ are. So. Kind of hypocritical.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Sorry. I. Uh. Sorry.

Listen, I should probably get some sleep. It’s like three in the morning here and I have work tomorrow.

**warlocktbh:** Right, time difference.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** I’m hoping things will look a little saner in the morning. Sometimes that just happens, in Tadfield.

**warlocktbh:** Don’t worry about it. I’m used to being the cranky one, I know how it can be.

Have a good night, Pip.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Goodnight, Warlock.

Actually hey, what’s your real name?

**warlocktbh:** Sadly, it actually is Warlock. I’ve kinda gotten to like it, though.

What about you?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Sadly, it actually is Pippin Galadriel Moonchild. Everyone I know calls me Pepper.

**warlocktbh:** Good night, Pepper. Go to sleep.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Don’t tell me wat to r 

Sorry, yes, going

* * *

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** YOURE THE OTHER BABY

**warlocktbh:** Go to sleep Pepper

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** I will explain tomorow!

* * *

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Adam Young was born on August 12, 2008 at five in the morning.

**warlocktbh:** ...

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yes. You too, I assume?

**warlocktbh:** Are you trying to get my info for identity theft? Or witchcraft?

Actually I give up, you apparently already know enough to do either of those things.

Yes. Me too. Weird talkative nuns and all.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** So the angel and the demon call themselves Adam’s godfathers, and when Adam asked why they hadn’t showed up earlier to help him figure out the whole Antichrist thing, they said they’d accidentally _ misplaced _him.

They don’t like to talk about it much, I think they’re embarrassed, but.

Listen, Warlock.

_ Baby swap. _

What do you think?

Or have I been reading too much fanfiction again.

Say something, Warlock! Did I break you?

**warlocktbh:** A little, yeah.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Sorry. 

**warlocktbh:** No, okay, but like. That actually makes my life make so much more sense.

Or much, much less. Not sure yet.

So is the demon tall and skinny and elegant and wears sunglasses 24/7?

And is the angel always smiling and making cocoa and telling people to appreciate things?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah. That’s definitely them. So you know them? They were prepping you to be the Antichrist?

**warlocktbh:** …

I guess.

Ashtoreth was my nanny. I’d totally believe she’s a demon. 

Well. If I believed in demons.

I don’t know.

Brother Francis could be an angel. If there were angels.

This is all getting to weird for me. I’m gonna go play Portal.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Okay. Sorry again. I’ll be around if you need anything.

**warlocktbh:** Thanks, Pepper.

* * *

**N_Ash**

Hey this might sound weird, but are you, like, an actual demon?

Yes.

Is that going to be a problem?

Are you going to eat my soul or smth?

No, dear.

Then, nah. We’re cool.

Good. I wouldn’t want a little thing like that to come between us.

Any other questions?

Yeah. Is Brother Francis an actual angel?

And did the two of you actually run off together the way I always thought?

And is it true you help stopped the world ending?

Yes; it’s complicated; and who have you been talking to?

Someone named Pepper. She says you helped her friend banish Satan.

Also what do you mean it’s complicated? Are the two of you together or not?

We are. Perhaps I should say it /was/ complicated, for a while in there.

Pepper’s a sharp one. Watch out for her.

Yeah, she reminds me of you.

You know, I think that’s one of the best things that anyone’s ever said about me.

Yeah? She must be pretty cool, then.

So. Is it true that there was a mixup and you thought I was the Antichrist?

Too sharp by half, that Pepper girl.

Yeah, you caught us.

It’s very cool of you to have kept in touch anyway. Even after you found the real Antichrist.

Warlock. You don’t have to thank us for that.

Only the cruelest of beings abandons people they have been responsible for simply because it no longer aligns with their plans for the universe.

Well, you are a demon.

Yeah, a demon who got sacked by Hell for saving the world.

Well, still, thanks.

Tell Francis thanks for me too, okay, Nanny?

I’ll pass it along. 

If you’re ever in the area, you could come out to the cottage one weekend. Hang out with Pepper and Them.

Yeah, I’d like that.

And hey, it’s summer. Maybe I can fly out that way for a while.

You’re always welcome.

I’ll have to run it by Francis if you plan on being longer than a weekend, but I’d be happy to have you for as long as you wish. 

Cool, let me know.

Nanny?

Yes, dear?

Thanks again. For everything.

You’re quite welcome, Warlock.

* * *

**warlocktbh:** So I checked in with Ashtoreth. She says it’s all real.

And she pretty much raised me, so I’m gonna trust her on this, even if she is a demon.

So you and the Antichrist and my old nanny and gardener saved the world, huh?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Seems like it.

**warlocktbh:** Wild.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah.

**warlocktbh:** I feel like that meme with that guy with all the pictures and maps and red string. 

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** You’re not crazy. It’s all real.

**warlocktbh:** Thanks. I’m settling in with all of it. Slowly.

The more I think about it, the more questions I have.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah, sounds about right.

I’ll try and answer whatever you wanna throw at me.

**warlocktbh:** There’s a lot.

I guess I’ll start with

What makes a demon a demon? Because Nanny Ashtoreth is weird and morbid, yeah, but not evil. 

She’s kind of my favorite person in the world.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah, that one’s a puzzler.

They've told enough stories about other angels that I can pretty conclusively say they're not all what I'd call good. Also a right bastard of an angel showed up after we beat the horsepersons. So idk. 

Crowley - that’s Nanny Ashtoreth to you, I guess - he doesn’t talk a lot about it, but if he doesn’t go out and make some mischief once in a while, he gets really antsy.

**warlocktbh:** Oh, that reminds me. You think I should be calling Nanny “he?” Nanny always dressed like a cross between Mary Poppins and Professor McGonagall, but I think that might have been because my parents expected nannies to be women.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Actually, you might want to ask them. Crowley usually dresses a little bit androgynously around us. Aziraphale usually calls Crowley “he” but occasionally “she” or “they” and we just try to follow Zira’s lead for the rest of the weekend.

**warlocktbh:** Aziraphale?

That’s the angel? Brother Francis? That’s his real name?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah. Why?

**warlocktbh:** …

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Uh oh. What now?

**warlocktbh:** When we were moving out of the house in London, I found a cool box in the basement. I couldn’t open it, but I kept it because it looked cool. 

It says “For the Principalitee Aziraphael” on it.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Oh, fuck.

That’ll be one of Agnes’s. 

**warlocktbh:** I’m afraid to ask but.

Who is Agnes and one of her whats?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Agnes Nutter. She was a witch hundreds of years ago and this will be one of her prophetic messages.

**warlocktbh:** I guess I really should come out to visit, then. Give Francis/Aziraphale the box.

Do you think it’s a problem he never got it while he was the house gardener?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Nah. She accounted for that sort of thing. He’ll get it when he was supposed to. They all seemed to pop up at the right moment.

You’re coming to visit them?

**warlocktbh:** Yeah, Nanny invited me.

Do you think your friends would be okay with me being there for one of your weekends?

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** It’ll be cool. Brian’s been bringing his enbyfriend. You can be my guest as well as Crowley and Zira’s. You’re triple welcome.

**warlocktbh:** :)

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Oh! You should come for the birthday party, unless you already have something planned.

**warlocktbh:** Nah, that sounds amazing, as long as the Antichrist doesn’t mind sharing.

Man, I thought my life was weird before. Now it’s like, “hey, fly out to England, spend the weekend with your birthday buddy, who’s the Antichrist, and an angel and a demon who raised you as a kid.”

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Too much?

**warlocktbh:** Nah. I was having kind of a boring summer.

* * *

**N_Ash**

Francis says you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, as long as it’s not right away. We’ll have to clear out the spare room. It’s full of junk.

Cool. Pepper said I should come in August, for mine and Adam’s birthday.

Well, that’ll add to the usual chaos.

I approve.

I’m totally doing that, then.

Nanny? 

Yes, my dear?

Should I be calling you something else? 

Pepper calls you Crowley and says you’re not usually a woman.

Technically I’m never a woman. Or a man. I’m a demon, and that is something else altogether. Ashtoreth is a version of my original name, and I like it or I wouldn’t have picked it to use with your family. Crowley is the one I call myself these days.

But I’ve always liked it when you call me Nanny.

I have had a lot of names and a lot of pronouns, but coming from you, Nanny will always feel accurate.

Cool.

What about your partner?

Francis? Or Aziraphale? Or Zira?

Aziraphale has always been indifferent to pronouns and unpicky about names. He’d tell you not to worry and use whichever you prefer. But he’s been Aziraphale since he was created. So he likes that one a little extra. ;)

Okay, one more question.

Let me know if I’m being annoying.

Not at all, dear. Ask away.

So if you aren’t evil, and you don’t eat souls, what does it mean that you’re a demon?

How d’you know I’m not evil?

Because you’re Nanny.

How d’you know I don’t eat souls? I could be making an exception for you.

Well, okay, do you?

Not exactly.

Ominous.

I try.

So?

Give me a minute, I’m trying to figure out how to make it into words.

I crave sin and discord. 

I don’t need food. I do need those. If there isn’t any to absorb, I need to create some.

Technically my job, when I answered to Hell, was to fill souls up to the brim with that shit, and send them down to the other demons. Human misconception is that Hell punishes the humans they get for sins they did here on Earth. Actually Hell pretty much just bothers the damned enough that they keep being tasty, filling little morsels of discord and sin.

If they stop being tasty, they get shunted up to the other side. Heaven feeds on love, peace and harmony.

Huh. So what counts as sin?

Seven classics, of course, are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. 

Honestly I think a lot of the damned are happy enough. Sinning’s fun. I especially appreciate sloth, for my own indulgence. Lust’s very popular. And envy. I like stirring those up. Wrath’s fun to sprinkle in. On a good day I can get all three at once if my hair’s good when I cut someone off in traffic with my heart-stoppingly beautiful vintage car.

Wow.

That’s… impressive.

Greed? Honestly, human greed is self-sustaining. If I encouraged any more of it, the souls of the rich would taste like treacle. Ugh. Too sweet for me. 

And gluttony. Well. I’m honestly pretty picky about my preferred flavor of gluttony. So I’m very selective about who I encourage it in.

Aziraphale?

…

I knew you for years. I can read your expressions. Sunglasses don’t hide them after that long.

I remember how you looked at Francis when he talked about what he was going to make once the apples got ripe. 

Fine, you got me.

Yeah. Now for both our benefits, I’m not gonna ask anything similar about lust.

...That’s probably wise.

Where was I? Pride?

Pride’s fun. 

Hmm, I only really like the kind with parades. My dad’s got a little too much of the other kind.

That’s true. Your father is rather over-salted with pride.

I like the kind with parades, too.

You get just enough pride, and plenty of lust, and then more often than not a lot of wrath. There’s always discord in one way or another. Even if no one shows up to protest the parades, you always get someone here and there venting about their parents or their workplace or their community. 

It helps that Aziraphale comes with. He gets plenty of love, peace and harmony out of it for himself.

Yeah, sounds about right.

So if pride is salty and greed is sweet, what do the others taste like? Is lust spicy?

Nah, it’s more of an umami sort of thing. Wrath is spicy.

Sloth is fatty, like heavy cream. Envy is bitter, like dark chocolate.

Gluttony is tart, like apples, on Aziraphale. On most people it’s sour, like indigestion.

I wonder what love, peace and harmony taste like.

Hang on, I’ll ask the angel.

Aziraphale says love is like bread, and comes in just as many different varieties. Peace and harmony, it’s like water. Deliciously clean and refreshing if you’re in need of it, but otherwise pretty boring.

So do you think I should try to get into heaven, or would you recommend hell?

Which is worse, being bored or overwhelmed?

Bored, totally.

Give hell a shot, then. You know the secret to getting out, if you change your mind.

Rad.

Don’t be in any hurry, though. America’s much easier to visit than hell.

Actually I’m thinking of moving back to England after I finish school.

Even better.

* * *

**warlocktbh:** It’s all set, I’m visiting the cottage for the first three weeks of August!

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** That’s fab! It’ll be good to meet you in person. 

Also I won’t be the only person left without an SO, which is good. Lately it’s been… just a tad rough.

The godfathers have been together forever of course, almost literally, depending on how you count, and Adam and Wen have been a thing since, like, lower 6th, also depending on how you count. Which was fine until Brian started bringing Jess along. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love Jess. But that makes me a seventh wheel all weekend. 

**warlocktbh:** Yeesh.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Yeah. Sometimes the Pulsifer-Devices come and bring their kids along, but default babysitter isn’t much better than extra wheel.

**warlocktbh:** Well, I’m happy to even out the numbers again and give you someone new to hang with who is in the know about all the weird shit.

Also I grew up with Crowley and Aziraphale so I have dirt on the godfathers you probably don’t.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** Ooh! Do tell.

**warlocktbh:** I gotta save something for when I’m actually there, so I don’t get boring.

**pippin_galadriel_moonbabe:** I have a feeling you won’t get boring.

* * *

_Greetings, Aziraphael._

_Herein is my second volume of Nice and Accurate Prophecies. My descendant Anathema must not be told that thou art in possession of this worke. To her I hath bequeathed a sheaf of empty pages in the guise of these revelations, that she might burn them and be free. But you, Principalitee, now that you hath faced the flames of Hell and becom free of your own bindings, you are no longer such a foole and will cherish this book well, I knoe._

_Give to the good Warlock boy an excess bisquite as his reward for carrying this package faithfullie, as I have no more coin to send my messengers._

_-Agnes Nutter_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! hope you enjoyed the latest random fun stuff my brain spat out this week.
> 
> I'm qwanderer on tumblr if u wanna hang. 
> 
> I appreciate comments but I probably won't reply unless you have specific questions.


End file.
